


How to Wake Up Feeling Totally Alert

by Maidenjedi



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pam, after the coal walk.  Spoilers through Season 3's "Beach Games."</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Wake Up Feeling Totally Alert

When she gets home, her first instinct is to grab the foot massager that she'd bought with one of the Target gift cards her mother had given her as a "you're gonna make it on your own" present. After all, she'd never had a chance to use it, and her feet do ache.

She tries it, with cold water, and quickly decides that the brushes and pads aren't doing much for her raw, burnt feet. She opts for simply sticking them in cool water in the bathtub, sitting on the closed toilet seat and thumbing through an old copy of Real Simple.

The adrenaline that had fueled her speech earlier is finally wearing off, unless she thinks of the awkward apology and hug from Jim. "I miss our friendship, too, Beesly." No explanation for missing her art show, no acknowledgement that his relationship with Karen might be as painful for Pam as the wedding planning had once been for Jim. Pam dwells on this scene several times, imagining different things she might have said, that he might have said, and twenty minutes have passed before she realizes she has been staring at page 20's "Tips for a Clean Closet (and Cleaner Conscience!)" article the entire time.

Her feet are raw, burnt, and now pruny from the water. She drains the tub and tiptoes to her bed, looking for all the world like a slow-motion version of herself on the coal walk.

Her sketchpad is on her nightstand, open to a half-hearted drawing of what may have been Angela in the Victoria's Secret, scowling at the merchandise. She may have intended it to be herself scowling at Karen's back in the same store, but Pam is a master of denial and rationalization, so it is definitely Angela.

She doesn't even think about it, she just rips the page from the pad and tosses it in the trash. She feels sick, like all of what had been fueling her for so long is now drained and gone, like she's reached that hungry stage where your stomach heaves a little for want of nourishment. She picks up a pencil, sharpens it. She sucks on the eraser, an old habit, indecision threatening. It's nearly midnight, she's had a long day, she is wrestling with the desire to watch Bridget Jones' Diary and drink the bottle of wine she was saving for a special day.

After putting on a pair of chenille lounge socks usually saved for cool rainy days with the windows open, Pam settles down on her bed with the sketchpad open to a new page and her pencil poised.

She draws the coal walk, herself from the thighs down, focusing on her feet and the smoking coal. She keeps flashing on that non-conversation with Jim. "We've been through a lot. And, uh, maybe there are things I should have said, been more honest about. I miss our friendship, too, Beesly." Hug, end scene.

The picture takes her maybe a half-hour to sketch, just the outlines and barest reflection. But tears are threatening and Pam flips the page, starts again. This time it's a whole version of her, face obscured by hair falling from a ponytail. It feels braver. She gets out charcoal, laughing a little (the manic note heard by no one), and fills in the spaces.

She finishes it over an hour later, with a flourish. Staring at it, she realizes the charcoal had smudged where the tears had actually fallen. Just this morning, she might have torn the sheet from the pad in frustration and crumpled it. Now she's just thinking that she's never drawn anything so real before.

She falls asleep in her clothes, the sketchpad on the floor. When she wakes up, her alarm startling her, she debates whether to call in and quit her job right now. What she's feeling is not embarrassment; this adrenaline rush comes from the idea that maybe now she can finally escape. She's wide awake before she's even showered, deciding that if she is going to quit, she'll do it in person.

In the shower, the soap does not sting on her burns (but the water is lukewarm just in case). Still feeling charged, she stands in front of her closet and dresses sort of daringly. A red blouse with the tags still hanging off, a pencil skirt her mother insisted on buying but that Pam never has the guts to wear. High heels, the ones she saves for special occasions, the ones she bought seven years ago and that only have one evening's worth of scuff marks on the bottom.

She pulls her hair up instead of just pulling back the sides.

She looks hot. Not like Pam, really, except just like Pam. The Pam who would walk the coal walk.

The drawing from the night before is facing up at her. She smiles and puts on red lipstick.

She takes a CD with her for the ride to work, something loud she can sing along to with the windows down.

And she makes it all the way to Dunder Mifflin before she realizes, today is Saturday.

\---

She comes in on Monday morning looking exactly as she always has. The lightest make-up, hair air-dried, a pale cardigan and blouse and a wool skirt from Sears.

But she had rolled the windows down on her way in, and she had sung along with some ridiculous girl-power anthem while she drove (under her breath, sure, and the radio wasn't turned up very loud). When she stops at Starbucks, she gets a whole-milk latte instead of skim, which she enjoys very much, thank you.

She listens to Michael's woe-is-me chant about Jan with detached amusement instead of over-identification, and she transfers calls without dwelling on the dreariness of her job or the urge to play Solitaire.

She's tacked the coal walk drawing above her keyboard, over the old group photo of the Scranton branch after the Dundies when she had been banned from Chili's. In the picture, Jim has his arm around her, and she's laughing.

When he comes in, Karen laughing about something he's said, she doesn't look up, and the unsent emails she's written to him are being deleted.

\--

"What did I learn from the coal walk? All those cheesy things you might expect me to learn. But I think I was just asleep all this time, you know? And now I'm not."

\---

THE END


End file.
